BICH MINH NGUYEN

Bich Minh Nguyen was born in Saigon in 1974. Her first novel, Short Girls, was published by Viking Penguin in July 2009. Her memoir-in-essays, Stealing Buddha’s Dinner received the PEN/Jerard Award from the PEN American Center and was named a Chicago Tribune Best Book of 2007, a Kiriyama Prize Notable Book, an Asian American Literature Award finalist, and a BookSense pick; it is also the Great Michigan Read selection for 2009-2010. Nguyen’s work has also appeared in publications such as Gourmet magazine, Jane magazine, Dream Me Home Safely: Writers on Growing up in America, and Watermark: Vietnamese American Poetry and Prose.

She received an MFA in creative writing from the University of Michigan and currently teaches creative nonfiction, fiction, and Asian American Literature at Purdue University. She lives in Chicago and West Lafayette, Indiana with her husband Porter Shreve.